Sermon: Spirit of Empowerment

Phyllis C. Roe
Preached at Church of the Crossroads,
Honolulu, HI
July. 24, 1994

Scripture: John 6:1-15

It is always risky to preach on such a familiar text. The minute we hear the story read we say "Oh, I know this one" and we get out scratch paper to make our grocery list or our "to do" list for the week during the sermon. With this text in particular, the Feeding of the Five Thousand, many of us think back to third grade Sunday School when we passed around graham crackers to everyone as if this somehow proved there was enough food for all.

But familiar is not the same as hackneyed, or thread bare. The fabric of this story is still tightly woven and its colors are bright with meaning. It is familiar because it is one of the stories which form the spine of our faith. This story of how five thousand people sat down and ate their fill on five barley loaves and two fishes is the only miracle story told by all four of the gospel writers. Those of you who have been going to the "Q" class know that there are different stories in each Gospel because each writer used different sources as well as a common source. That the feeding of the multitudes appears in all four gospels means not only that it was a very important story for the early church, but also that it probably happened much the way we hear it today.

We can enter this story by way of identification. Is there any one of us who does not know what it is like to stand before a hungry world with only five barley loaves and two fishes? If ever there was a multitude to feed it is in Rwanda. Not five thousand, but millions of people starving, dying of disease. I read in Time magazine that in one village there are 100 cholera death every day. We can hardly stand to look at the suffering. Even an around the clock airlift of supplies and food seems a little like five barley loaves and two fishes. Thousands of people sleep on the streets at night -- there is not enough housing to go around. Domestic violence figures continue to climb. Troubled adolescents have fewer places to turn as Hale Kipa shelters close.

Jesus said to Philip, "where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?" Philip, in despair, said "six months' wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to have even a little." Lord, the crowd is too big, our resources are two meager, we do have five barley loaves and two fishes but that's just not enough to go very far. Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to all who were there, so also the fish, as much as they wanted.

As you can tell from the words, the story of the feeding was seen from the viewpoint of the early church as a eucharistic feast. In fact, for John this is the eucharist, occurring as it did during Passover. John has no Last Supper scene as the other gospels do. Jesus' actions here and at the Last Supper were the same: he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it. In John this story leads up to what the feeding is a sign of: Jesus says, "I am the bread of life, whoever comes to me will never be hungry." The One who asks us to feed the world is the One by whom we are fed.

But those who were there at the time knew nothing of this later experience of Jesus that is read back into this story. What they did know were the old stories of how God fed God's people in various miraculous ways, sending manna to sustain Israel in the wilderness, sending ravens to feed the prophet Elijah with bread and meat. As we read this morning in the second book of Kings there is a story very much like today's when the prophet Elisha fed a hundred soldiers with twenty barley loaves and a few ears of corn. In every case, the situation looked hopeless, the people despaired, and God provided. The crowd immediately made the connection, "he must be a prophet," like Elijah or Moses.

Read backward in memory or forward in hope, the story's focus is not on the magical multiplication of food, or on the miracle worker, but on God who feeds us. We take what we have, give thanks, and share it -- and in those actions God is present with us and sustains us. We do this not because we think we have enough, but because it is what we do have and what we can do and because has promised to add God's gifts to ours.

Recently I read an excellent book by Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying. Let me tell you the story. It is set in southern Louisiana in the early 1940's in the days when segregation of blacks and whites was still a reality. There are two main characters: Jefferson, a young black man, who was in the wrong place at the wrong time during a liquor store robbery in which three men (the owner was white) were killed. Because he was standing there when the police arrived he was arrested, convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair, though there was no evidence other than his presence at the scene to link him to the killings. Grant Wiggins, also a young black man, who left his hometown to get a university education, has returned to the plantation school to teach, more out of a sense of duty than of hope that his teaching can make a difference in the lives of plantation children. Joyless, he struggles with whether to stay or move on to a more pleasant life for himself. The story centers around a relationship that forms between these two men and the mutual transformation that takes place.

The story opens with Jefferson's trial. Everyone knew, even before it began, that being black, he would be found guilty. The defense attorney, in a distorted effort to appeal to the jury's sympathy, presents Jefferson as less than human, not even worthy of bothering to electrocute. He's not even intelligent enough to be able to plan a robbery and a murder. He is a "thing" to hold the handle of a plow, to load bales of cotton, but is not a "man." In conclusion, he stated "why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this thing."

Of course it was no use. Jefferson was taken off to jail to wait until the day for his electrocution would be set. That would seem to be the end. In those days there was no hope of an appeal, no human rights organization to step in. An innocent black man convicted of a crime against a white person was common. But as the sentence was pronounced you could feel the town sink into despair.

Jefferson's Godmother, who had raised him and sat in the court room throughout the trial, was devastated -- by the sentence; but even more so because she saw that her godson had been thoroughly humiliated and dehumanized by the trial; she heard only that her godson had been called a hog. She called Grant Wiggins, the teacher, to her. "I don't want them to kill no hog," she said. "I want a man to go to that chair, on his own two feet. I want you to make him know he's not a hog, he's a man." Grant wanted to have nothing to do with it. "Miss Emma, Jefferson is dead. It is only a matter of weeks, maybe a couple of months -- but he's already dead. The past twenty-one years we've done all we could for Jefferson. He's dead now. And I can't raise the dead. All I can do is try to keep the others from ending up like this -- but he's gone from us. There's nothing I can do."

Not to give up, Miss Emma and Grant's grandmother continue to insist and pressure, until finally he gives in. He begins to visit Jefferson in the jail, hating every minute of it. He does not believe it will make any difference, he does not want the pressure of the whole town watching, he hates teaching. No one else believes it will make a difference either -- the sheriff and his deputies even take bets that Jefferson will never be more than an uneducated, shuffling "thing." Each time Grant goes he faces a sullen Jefferson who lies with his face to the wall and repeatedly says, "I'm a hog. Why would you visit a hog?"

It went slowly. The turning point came when a group of people went together and bought a radio which Grant took to Jefferson. Somehow the music and the contact with the world began to bring Jefferson to life a little.

Encouraged, Grant begins to take his job more seriously. One day he makes an impassioned plea to Jefferson.

"Jefferson, do you know what a hero is? A hero is someone who does something for other people. He does something that other men don't and can't do... I want you to be that kind of person. You could give something to those children down in the quarter. You could give them something that I never could. They expect it from me, but not from you. The white people out there are saying that you don't have it -- that you're a hog, not a man. But I know they are wrong. You have the potentials. We all have, no matter who we are.

...I want you to show them the difference between what they think you are and what you can be. To them, you're nothing but another nigger -- no dignity, no heart, no love for your people. You can prove them wrong."

...We need you, me, your godmother, the children, and all the rest of them in the quarter. Do you understand what I'm saying to you Jefferson?"

When Grant looked at Jefferson he saw that he was crying -- something was touched, something deep down in him.

A different Spirit began to move in the community The whole plantation began to get involved. Others came to visit, including a group of school children. It wasn't just one person's dignity and worth at stake: Jefferson stood for all of them and they wanted him to know they believed in him.

Jefferson began to change. He talked with people, he used the pencil and paper Grant brought him to begin to write down his thoughts and feelings in his last days -- terrible spelling, poor grammar, but what else makes a person than valuing their own thoughts and feelings. In thanking Grant he wrote, "ain't nobody never been that good to me and make me think im sombody."

The day came for the electrocution. The whole plantation community waiting breathlessly, in prayer and tears, unstil it was over. Grant could not make himself go to be with Jefferson at the end. He waited until one of the deputies came to tell him. Paul had been one sympathetic white person who had helped in whatever ways he could when Grant went to the jail. "It went as well as it could have gone," he said. "He was the strongest man in that crowded room. I'm not saying to make you feel good, I'm not saying this to ease your pain. He was the strongest man there. We all stood jammed together, no more than six feet away from that chair. We all had each other to lean on. But straight he walked by himself."

At the end, through their tears, everyone in the plantation stood a little straighter and looked the world in the eye with pride. Jefferson had gone to his death knowing he was somebody and because one of their community mattered, they all mattered. And the cynical teacher, seeing the change, began to care.

In a hopeless situation hope came in the form of those who offered what they had, however limited. In those meals of fried chicken, cornbread, pork chops, gumbo and rice cooked by a loving godmother and shared by Jefferson and Grant in a cramped, depressing cell on death row one hears the promise: you will know me in the breaking of the bread.

We do what we can. We take what we have and give it. Like the NIssei who faced down prejudice in World War II, like Claude DuTeil who stood on the street corner of Honolulu with peanut butter sandwiches for the homeless, like our Transition House which houses only three women and their children -- it may seem like five loaves and two fishes in face of the enormous needs of the world. But when we give what we have we become part of a larger story, we become part of the community of God, a web of interconnectins empowered by God's Spirit which moves among us. Lives are changed.

Now go look at your loaves. How many do you have? Any amount will do. Now, take what you have, hold it lightly in your hand, now bless it -- thank God for what you have, then break it -- yes, no way to stay nice and neat-- and then give it -- to whoever is standing in front of you, beside you, around you, and never mind if you think it's not enough. The rest will come. That is not up to us. And don't be surprised if the next nail you pound for Habitat for Humanity, the next dying person you visit for Hospice, the next bowl of soup you fix for IHS or the Aids luncheon begins to taste just a little bit like -- bread and wine.